Handmade Christmas: Princess Capes

Another handmade Christmas gift idea for my girls this year-princess capes! We are all about princesses in our house & dress-up too. And I've seen some really cute capes on other blogs & thought I would make some for my girls. My older daughter saw the dinosaur girl cape I made for her cousin & wanted her own too, so I know she will love this! I also found some cheap, but sparkly princess crowns on clearance at JoAnn's after Halloween so I'll package them up with the capes too.

So I'm fairly new to sewing, really just been getting into it over the last year or so, and making these capes has been my first try at sewing satin. Wow it can be a little tricky, huh? Or is it just me? Anyway, it was an adventure working with satin, but I got the capes finished & I am satisfied with how they turned out. I used some cheap satin for the front & then lined the backs with a really cute sparkly star flannel. I had made a simple cape template that I can reuse, it's similar looking to a bib at the top. I made the cape a little on the long side so that my daughters can wear them for years to come. And since the baby is still so small I made hers shorter than my older daughter's (the photo above shows the size difference). Then I just drew my own princess crown template & used that to cut out a crown from some silver fabric. I also just printed out large letters to use as templates to create the monograms on the crowns. Those I hand stitched the letter onto the crown & then the crown I sewed onto the cape with my machine. I added some velcro in strips around the neck to make the cape somewhat adjustable & so no one gets choked while wearing & playing in the capes. Lastly, I added some faux rhinestone jewels above each point of the crown.

Here's the pink cape for my older daughter, Kaylee:

And the purple one for my younger daughter, Aidynn:

Here they are together showing the cute flannel on the back:

A close-up of one of the crowns:

And I used Aidynn as my model while Kaylee was at school one day so that I could get some photos of her wearing her cape. It's a good thing she's young & won't remember having tried this cape on before when she opens it on Christmas!

So it's a little longer than I wanted, but I know she'll quickly grow into it & I still think it looks pretty darn cute:

Well, with Christmas right around the corner I really need to get working on some other handmade gifts!